The bread was found in an oven structure in a Stone Age settlement.
Archaeologists have found the world’s oldest bread in the Stone Age settlement of Çatal Hüyük in Anatolia, Turkey. The bread is about 8,600 years old, said the Turkish Necmett Erbakan University, which studied the bread in its announcement this week.
Bread was found in the furnace structure, which was mostly destroyed. The researchers found wheat, barley, seeds and “a round, spongy residue about the size of a palm” in the oven, which the university’s research center defined as “fermented bread from the year 6600 BCE”.
The assistant professor who led the archaeological excavations Ali Umut Turkcan told the Turkish state news agency Anadolu Agencythat the earliest remains of raised bread have been found in Egypt.
“This [Turkista löytynyt] bread is a miniature of bread. There was a fingerprint in the center of the bread. It is not baked in the oven, but fermented for preservation purposes. This has not been found before. Çatal Hüyük has been the first to find things before,” Türkcan told the news agency.
In the research, grain residues and indications of fermentation were found in the bread, among other things. The bread had been mixed with water and flour and had been kept next to the oven. The organic material had been preserved to this day under a thin layer of clay.
“An exciting discovery for Turkey and the world,” says the biologist who studied the bread Salih Kavak said in a university release.
Catal Hüyük has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2012. A significant Stone Age settlement center existed around 7500–6400 BC.
About 5,000–10,000 people lived in the area.